How to make a DIY vertical garden

Old gutters, dirt, water, seeds and a wall available. They are the essential elements to be able to create your own vertical garden.

He is about to end up run over, his mother saves him

Old gutters, dirt, water, seeds and a wall available. They are the essential elements to be able to create your own vertical garden. Word of GreenUpgrade, an online guide to sustainable lifestyle.

The case reported by the US site is that of Suzanne Forsling, a gardening enthusiast who moves from Iowa to Alaska.

From the continental climate of Iowa to cold Alaska, Suzanne's hobby literally bears less and less 'fruit'. The temperature are rigid, Plot è poor e times exposed to the sun, the available area è very limited due to the presence of trees which, with their roots, invade the cultivable area and some animals like cats, bears and porcupines they unearth the few plants that can grow.

5 problems Suzanne solved with 5 simple steps:

1. first of all get some common gutters for roofs. You can take old unused pieces making sure they are still intact.

2. Time fix them choosing the external wall based on the exposure of the house and the characteristics of the plants you want to grow.

3. Once anchored to the wall, filled the gutters per half with potting soil.

4. Then spread a layer of natural fertilizer low release and cover with the rest of the soil. Having limited space available, natural fertilizer provides the plant with useful elements for growth.

5. Finally you can switch to sowing.

Suzanne's problems are not the same as those of someone who lives in a metropolis surrounded by concrete, but moving from a traditional garden to a vertical one is a solution in both cases. By adapting the length of the gutters to the size of a window or terrace, you can create your own garden while living on the tenth floor of a building in the city.

And the big cities are dressing up in green thanks to vertical gardens. Those of the French botanist Patrick White they are the most striking example of the latest trends in nature - architecture.

No gutter for the eccentric French botanist. To protect the wall from vegetation, Blanc uses two layers of felt closed in waterproof casings which he attaches to a metal framework. The felt conserves water by feeding a drip irrigation system while the lower part of the system is used as a collector of garden residues. Those by Patrick Blanc are real works of plant architecture which, in addition to contributing to the image of the metropolis, improve air quality.

Although very distant in complexity and structure from the DIY garden, we could not fail to give you a taste of the green walls by Blanc. The Forum Box in Madrid, il Quai Branly Museum in Paris, on Trussardi coffee in Milan and the European Parliament of Brussels are just a few examples of organic architecture.

The vertical gardens they absorb carbon dioxide, the smog and the rays UV. They absorb external heat keeping the house cool and insulated. They slow down the night heat release from the home by acting as a thermal pad. They are real save anti-pollution energy.

A more modest but still pleasing to the eye air filter, the system proposed by GreenUpgrader seems to have already been successful. The comments are enthusiastic, there are those who have already put the advice into practice by awakening their botanical soul, those who have managed to reproduce a mini greenhouse using plastic bags that they anchored to the gutters and those who have given color to their street with some small vertical flower beds.

Serena Bianchi